


The Proper Care and Handling of Your Sucker Rod Pump

by infrarad



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Epistolary, F/M, IT guy Ben, Innuendo, Inspired by true events, Modern AU, Reylovalentines2020, extremely suggestive technical writing, technical writer Rey, unintentional stalker Ben
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:57:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22705432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infrarad/pseuds/infrarad
Summary: Ben Solo is a information security analyst tasked with checking his client's employees' emails when they are flagged for inappropriate content. Rey Johnson is a technical writer whose emails with her bestie Rose can get pretty NSFW, especially when the documents she's assigned to edit arethishorny. Ben is increasingly charmed by Rey's daily updates, and when he discovers that she has a crush on the mysterious plaid-wearing mountain of a man she sees around the office, he wants to make a move... but how do you ask somebody out when you've been snooping on them for weeks?
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 30
Kudos: 115





	1. Vulnerability Assessment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ceremony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceremony/gifts).

> FOR THE REYLO VALENTINE'S EXCHANGE 2020. Based on a prompt for an Attachments AU from [Ceremony!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceremony/profile) This fic will be a few chapters long! I hope you enjoy it! Happy Valentine's Day!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it a meet-cute if one cutie is unaware they're meeting? 🤔

The first time one of Rey Johnson’s emails was flagged by FirstOrder Security Solutions, it was only his second day on the job. Ben knew because it was there in the first line of the email:

> _Well, babe, my second day at Rebel Industrial Properties went a little more smoothly than the first, so kudos to me, I guess, for setting the bar low! _

Monitoring electronic communications was a relatively small part of Ben’s role as information security analyst at FirstOrder, and it was a lot less interesting than other people seemed to think. The system was mostly automated, using global threat intelligence to screen correspondence for red flags. Most of the red flags were from incoming communications the software identified as spam or phishing attempts and automatically blocked. Last time Ben ran the quarterly numbers, he found that sixty four percent of messages never even made it to their clients’ SMTPs thanks to FirstOrder’s oversight.

Personal emails were what most frequently required human attention. But even so, most of them were just _ boring _ and the ones that weren’t generally stressed him out more than entertained him _ . _

And this one was long. It wasn’t even 9 a.m. yet; Rey’s email bore a time stamp of 7:48 p.m. the night before.

> _Sorry I’ve been AWOL, _ Rey Johnson’s email continued. _ The first day was a complete nightmare and I should’ve texted but I was wallowing. More on that in a minute -- boring stuff first! So I have a better handle on my duties now, to wit: _
> 
>   * _Editing documents for consistency and readability (like I did at JakkU)_
>   * _Uploading verified technical papers to our database_
>   * _Compiling monthly analytics from the database_
>     * _Apparently I’ll be responsible for presenting those to the department heads, which is NOT something they mentioned in the interview. _
> 
> _ I guess I’ll be okay, but the next reports are due in three days and I have no idea when I’ll get to put them together between all the onboarding, training and meetings. _

Ben chose a career in systems security because it usually played to his strengths of expertly avoiding human contact. Even when he had an onsite assignment -- like now, when he was in his third week of a systems overhaul for Rebel Industrial Properties -- he was largely left to his own devices. Literally.

But this task -- this one, pesky task -- had become a real thorn in his side. In his little broom closet of a temporary office, Ben sighed in frustration. Reading his own personal emails was exhausting enough; he had very little interest in combing through those of absolute strangers. Especially ones as fucking verbose as this Rey guy seemed to be. But the filters he was building for Rebel were still in their fledgling form, and it would be a few days before he could install the application that would highlight whatever triggered the filter. As of now, all he had to go on was the fact that the program had diverted it to the “custom filter - TK-421 unknown” category.

> _Better news, though: our team has access to a technical expert. Poe is his name. It’ll be a really welcome change and reduce the hours spent asking authors if a term is an acronym or not, and if not, why it’s in all caps…. Anyway, so far the rest of the team seems pretty solid. There’s Finn, of course, and Kaydel is the the other technical writer, and they took me out to lunch yesterday. _
> 
> _ And after we got back to the office, that’s when everything went downhill. _
> 
> _ When we got back to the building, I remembered my leftovers were in Finn’s car. Finn gave me the keys and I went to get them. When I came back in, I managed to just catch the elevator, and inside was an older guy. Gray-haired, wearing holey corduroys and a t-shirt. Casual, you know? Anyway, I said hi and he didn’t respond, and I, like the IDIOT I am, tried to make smalltalk. Introduced myself, said I was the new technical writer, held out my hand to shake. He acted like he didn’t even see it. So I asked him if he worked at RIP. He said yes. I asked what unit. He said IP. I was a little surprised because I hadn’t seen him on my tour of the IP offices, but I asked him if he had any pointers for a newbie in the writers’ squad. _
> 
> _ And Rose, this guy deadass looked me in the eye and said, “Sorry, kid, I don’t have time to train every rookie who comes bleating at me for help.” _
> 
> _ Blame what happened next on temporary insanity. The elevator doors opened -- we’d stopped at my floor -- and I backed out of them and said straight to his face, “Well, fuck you too, guy!” _

Ben snorted out loud. _ Found the trigger, _he thought, and before reading another line, decided to head to the employee lounge for a celebratory cup of coffee.

Rebel, despite their incredibly antiquated ideas about information security, had heartily embraced the bane of the 21st century: the Keurig. Ben was the one-man minority of people who longed for the proper drip coffeemaker, like the one he had back at FirstOrder. He had to dig through three drawers of flavored K-cups to find something plain and remotely drinkable, and wrestling it into the machine was enough to make him break into a cold sweat on a bad day. He supposed he should feel guilty, too, for inflating his carbon footprint by contributing to K-cup’s incredibly wasteful business model, but he figured he balanced his karma by not hurling the stupid Keurig machine against the wall.

As his drink brewed, he leaned against the counter. It was weird being back at Rebel, and less painful than he thought it would be, too. So much had changed in the fifteen years since he’d left. When he’d first found out that Rebel was contracting FO to overhaul their systems, he’d been furious. He’d wanted nothing to do with the assignment. He certainly hadn’t expected it to result in his mother welcoming him back with such warmth.

Still, the assignment wasn’t without its searing agonies, of which the Keurig was only a fraction.

FirstOrder offered protection packages in an a la carte style so clients could customize their levels of support. Some just wanted the minimum protection from BEC attacks. Others handled sensitive or proprietary data but were small enough not to employ cyber security professionals in-house, so they required extra-robust security frameworks as well as constant vulnerability assessments and pentesting. And a couple, like the firm of Palpatine, Snoke, Snoke, and Snoke, required massive closed systems designed from the ground up. No legitimate business had a reason to be _ that _secret, Ben sometimes thought -- and he was pretty sure that PSS&S were up to some shady shit, but the security of their network was so absolute that Ben didn’t have the clearance to investigate. Which was probably for the best.

And then there were what Hux liked to call the Snooper Force: companies that, in addition to whatever standard security packages they requested, also had certain conditions and keywords they wanted FO to flag and check. 

And of the Snooper Force, Rebel Industrial Properties -- run in part by his uncle Luke Skywalker -- was the… snoopiest.

At the first planning meeting FirstOrder had arranged with Rebel, they had been given a CD -- an actual fucking compact disc! -- that Rebel’s IT guys said held a list of terms that company emails would need to be screened for. They had not seemed happy about it, and they had gone so far as to explain, by way of exculpating themselves, that the disc came directly from “the big boss.”

Back at FO, after digging up an external disc drive, Ben had found the disc contained a single Word ‘97 doc. And that doc contained a list of almost three hundred words and phrases that Rebel wanted to add to the custom filter. Fewer than a dozen contained names of company leadership. The rest comprised an astonishingly comprehensive collection of profanity.

The list ran the gamut from the seven words you can never say on television to the actual phrase “seven words you can never say on television.” It also included words he was surprised to see his uncle knew, like “af” (which Luke had helpfully glossed: “as f*%k”). 

Once the FirstOrder team had finished wiping tears of laughter from their eyes, Ben had resigned himself to the unenviable job of Net Nanny for Rebel’s unsuspecting employees.

The Keurig finished its brew cycle and Ben took his alleged French roast back to his office. Settling in at his machine, he was about to close the ticket on Rey Johnson’s email when the first line of the next paragraph caught his eye.

> _But Rose -- it gets worse. _

Well… maybe he’d better finish reading the email, he thought, sipping his coffee. Just to completely rule out any legitimate threats. Due diligence, and all that.

> _So we had a meeting later in the afternoon with my boss’s boss and his team. Kaydel and Finn said we have these meeting every week, and that it’s for our benefit as well as the VP’s -- this company really values everybody knowing what everybody else is doing! _

Ben laughed out loud at that. _ Dude, you have no idea, _he thought, and continued reading.

> _So we got in and someone told my boss that the VP was delayed so she should start the meeting without him and he’d join us. So Leia had us start by introducing ourselves, and then she had everybody go around the table providing updates on what they were doing. They’d gotten to Paige (it was nice to see a familiar face!) when the conference room door opened and in came Elevator Dude. _
> 
> _ Who proceeded. _
> 
> _ To sit. _
> 
> _ At the head of the table. _
> 
> _ And introduce himself as Luke Skywalker, VP of Rebel Insutrial Properties. _

“Oh my god.” Ben’s groan was so loud and instantaneous that he startled himself. He kicked back in his computer chair and dragged both palms down his face, then ran them through his hair, one after another.

He should’ve known the moment he read the description of the corduroys. 

> _He then asked us to continue, and so Paige finished, and Rose. When I say I DIED?? It wasn’t an instantaneous death, more like a gradual asphyxiation paired with killer bees that somehow ended up in my stomach region. And then it was my turn tme and I PANICKED bc I had figured Leia would let me skip me bc it was my _ first day _ and what was I supposed to say? But I finally managed to make eye contact with the VP and HE WAS LOOKING RIGHT AT ME. With this LOOK on his face, this smirk like he was just waiting for me to say “I’m Rey and I’m the new technical writer” so he could say “SIKE, not anymore you’re not!” _
> 
> _ But he didn’t even let me open my mouth. Instead he was like “Rey Johnson, yes, the newest addition to Leia’s team” and then something like “I’ve got my eye on you kid”?? I don’t remember tbh as I was distracted by the whole process of slowly dying (see: killer bees) but it felt really ominous. _
> 
> _ And then the rest of the meeting just went on? And Luke just SMIRKED at me all the way through it, until it was time to go and I bolted. It was probably super fucking rude but I couldn’t get out of that room fast enough. _

Ben understood the feeling all too well.

> _So that was my first day. I haven’t told anyone else and honestly I don’t think I can bring myself to. Maybe in ten years we’ll have a big fat laff about it all but I still kind of want to go out into the desert and dig a hole and fling myself into it in as dramatic a fashion as this degree of embarrassment warrants. _
> 
> _ For the time being, I’m going to fling myself instead into being the very best technical writer Rebel Industrial Properties has ever seen. And I will leave you with three extremely magical words, which have brightened my day enormously, but which I will have to explain later: _
> 
> _ Sucker. Rod. Pumps. _
> 
> _ x Rey _

And with one click of the scroll wheel on his mouse, Ben’s eyes landed on Rey Johnson’s company signature.

Two thoughts crossed Ben’s mind almost simultaneously.

_ Rey Johnson is a girl? _

_ …. fuck. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First: I have never read _Attachments,_ but I fell in love with the fic prompt the moment I read it. I hope I do it justice.
> 
> Second: This has not been beta-read. Typos within correspondence should be considered diegetic. Other typos are on me.
> 
> Third: the title of this fic will come into play more in the next chapter. The story behind it is near and dear to my heart for reasons I will explain in chapter two's end notes. For now suffice it to say that I owe [my dear friend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaviniaLavender/pseuds/LaviniaLavender) a lot of laughter (and that's the least of it).
> 
> **References:**
> 
> Vulnerability assessment: a systematic review of security weaknesses in information systems. 
> 
> Snooper Force: a reference from the very first episode of the amazing British political satire _The Thick of It,_ which Hux binge-watches like normal people binge The Office.
> 
> [The seven words you can't say on TV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBH5oNQOS0) is an infamous George Carlin stand-up routine, which dates Luke considerably.


	2. Tips on Servicing Your Sucker Rod

Hux liked to say that for every ugly problem there was an elegant solution. But Ben Solo’s problem was Rey Johnson, who was _ far _from ugly and whose solution, it stood to reason, would be messy, painful, complicated, and otherwise inelegant.

He’d let the first email sit until lunchtime, hoping an answer would come to him in a flash of inspiration. In his thirty-two years, this strategy had yet to yield consistent positive results, and this time was no different. Eventually he had to make a decision, and because his recent reconciliation with his family didn’t preclude him from indulging in a little petty rebellion against his uncle, he unflagged Rey’s email without taking further action. He told himself it had nothing to do with how her photo had made his heart do an alarming two-step in his chest.

But in the next forty-eight hours, he got no fewer than eight flagged messages involving Rey Johnson and her friend Rose. He was actually relieved to be at his Rebel office when he started reviewing them, because the strangled noise he made when he started to read the thread would’ve brought Hux in snooping immediately at FirstOrder.

> From: johnsonr@rip.com  
To: rose.taco@gmail.com
> 
> Subj: It’s 9:30 in the morning
> 
> _ And I am neck-deep (....throat-deep? FORGIVE ME) in a document called TIPS ON SERVICING YOUR SUCKER ROD. _
> 
> _ No, this is not Chuck Tingle’s latest (if the lack of butts in the title didn’t tip you off). This is the actual title of a manuscript by an engineer in the natural gas / oil industry, which I am getting paid REAL MONEY to edit. Anybody who says technical writing can’t be sexy is _
> 
> _ well _
> 
> _ probably correct _
> 
> _ But as this document is rapidly proving, it CAN be extremely horny. _
> 
> _ Boy, I hope this email makes it past your spam filter ;) _
> 
> _ x Rey _

Ben shut his eyes and took a deep breath.

His first instinct was to keep reading. But if there was one thing he’d learned from the dark years, it was that his instincts shouldn’t usually be trusted. So instead of devouring the rest of her flagged emails the way he wanted to, he minimized the program window and worked on hacking his way through his own email for a while, trying to let his mind settle.

He didn’t have a word for the state he found himself in. He had already scoffed at Luke’s pretensions to surveillance. Because Rey was far from the only employee whose emails kept clogging “custom filter - TK-421.” Finn Strom, whom Rey had mentioned in her first email, had an ongoing correspondence with Poe Dameron that was peppered with obscenities and not even slightly entertaining.

But now… well, after the first email, he felt the weirdest kind of connection to this girl. Woman, he supposed, though she looked like a teenager. Maybe it was just her instinctive reaction to Luke’s absolute _ fuckery _that resonated with him. He wished he’d been there to see the look on Luke’s face when this nobody snapped back at him. How cute she was had nothing to do with it (he told himself, firmly).

And then there was the really complicated part. Despite his hatred of Luke’s policy, he had been shunting all the TK-421 emails into a folder to analyze later to improve the filter’s intelligence. But Rey’s -- well. Even if he scrubbed identifying information from it, he knew that if Luke read it, he’d identify her immediately.

He realized that everything inside him was pushing to sabotage Luke’s mission. And that was such a ruinously familiar impulse that even he could see the potentially disastrous outcomes.

He needed more data points, he thought. And that was an excellent excuse to keep reading.

> From: rose.taco@gmail.com  
To: johnsonr@rip.com
> 
> Subj: Re: It’s 9:30 in the morning
> 
> _ Wtf johnson thanks for reaffirming my decision to drop out of engineering school _
> 
> _ Can you imagine working with the dudes that write that shit?? Noooo thank you, I will gladly stick with my bespoke EDC/office supply studio where I get to wield LASERS every day _
> 
> _ Pew pew! _
> 
> _ rosie _

> From: johnsonr@rip.com  
To: rose.taco@gmail.com
> 
> Subj: Re: re: It’s 9:30 in the morning
> 
> _ Mild mannered machinist by day… laser wielding bad bitch … also by day! _😂
> 
> _ I found more gold in the form of tips and tricks for maintaining optimum performance of one’s, erm, sucker rod: _
> 
>   * _"sucker rod pumps should be well lubricated"_
>   * _"bare rods should never be pumped into the hole”_
>   * _My personal favorite -- on Pumping Efficiency, describing the ideal stroke length: "Long and slow is the way to go."_
> 
> _ I’m no subject matter expert but I don’t think I need to consult Poe on any of these _🤐
> 
> _ x Rey _

> From: rose.taco@gmail.com  
To: johnsonr@rip.com
> 
> Subj: Re: re: re: It’s 9:30 in the morning
> 
> _ Brb screaming into the void _
> 
> _ (for the love of christ please consult poe and film it for me) _

> From: johnsonr@rip.com  
To: rose.taco@gmail.com
> 
> Subj: Re: re: re: re: It’s 9:30 in the morning
> 
> _ OKAY JUST ONE MORE AND I’LL STOP _
> 
> _ In the document I’m editing there’s one section called ERECTION followed immediately by one called LUBRICATION. _
> 
> _ In all caps. Just like that. _
> 
> _ I cannot make this shit up. _
> 
> 🍆🍆💦💦,
> 
> _ Rey _

> From: rose.taco@gmail.com  
To: johnsonr@rip.com
> 
> Subj: Re: re: re: re: re: It’s 9:30 in the morning
> 
> _ We get it engineering dude, the sucker rod pump is your penis :c _

The Tracfone that Rebel had assigned to him in lieu of a landline chose that moment to ring. 

Ben was poised to hurl it against the wall almost before he knew what came over him. But the knowledge that he’d have to explain to his _ mother _why he needed them to requisition another one stilled his hand. Instead, he set the phone back down next to his mousepad and took a deep, calming breath the way his therapist had taught him.

The wave of anger washed through and away, and the phone was still ringing.

“This is Ben.”

On the other side there was some muffled shouting and then the sound of a throat clearing. “Solo. We’ve got an emergency with the Hutt account. Can you come back to headquarters?”

Ben grit his teeth. “I’m fucking in the middle of something here, Hux,” he said. “Can you not hold it together over there for eight consecutive goddamn hours?”

“I don’t know, are you capable of handling more than one thing at a time like a fucking adult or are you _ actually _seven infants stacked on each other’s shoulders in a fucking trench coat? Because I haven’t heard this much whining in my life outside of youth sport.”

“Jesus CHRIST,” Ben shouted. “Fine. Fuck. I’ll be there in half an hour, but you get to explain to Leia why we’re falling behind schedule.”

“I’m not explaining jack shit to your mom,” Hux laughed. “See you in fifteen, Solo.”

Hux hung up, and not a moment too soon. Ben could feel a headache starting to pound behind his left eye. The urge to fling the phone across the room could no longer be ignored.

CRACK.

There were some things that even deep breathing couldn’t help.

He threw his work laptop and peripherals into his bag. On his way out, he slammed the door so loudly that a woman in an office down the hall shrieked.

💦

The Hutts had succumbed to a relatively pedestrian phishing attack. Thanks to the family’s draconian (and somewhat paranoid) security policies, FirstOrder had to scramble all staff to handle the breach. The unlucky soul responsible for the blunder had been terminated with extreme prejudice -- and Ben hadn’t been able to tell by the tone of Jabba’s massive, booming voice how literally to take that.

In any case, Ben and the others at FO had been stuck in the dungeon-like security center of the Palace for nine hours, analyzing the attack, running virus scans, overseeing password updates, and restoring backups for several employees who already got hit by the ransomware. A few FO staff had stayed on to get the job done, but Ben had been up for twenty hours and if he didn’t get some sleep, he was likely to do more harm than good. Phasma was staying behind to supervise the mooks, so Ben felt no compunction about leaving.

He really did need to make progress on the Rebel account, though. If he didn’t finish analyzing the results of the vulnerability tests he’d been doing, he wouldn’t be prepared for the firewall pentest scheduled for the following week.

And at the very least, he wanted to clear the rest of Rebel’s flagged emails before bed.

It was almost midnight by the time he came home to his little craftsman-style bungalow. He’d bought it when he moved back in town a couple years earlier, intending to fix it up and flip it, but then he’d gotten hired on at FO, and by the time he got the place fixed up, he neither needed the cash nor felt like parting with it. The flower beds in the front had gone to seed, but what the house lacked in curb appeal it made up for with its interior: black walnut trim, original built-ins and wood floors, high ceilings, functional fireplace, and a stained glass window in the bathroom that he’d gone to great pains to restore. The claw-foot tub was more of a nuisance than a blessing, but it still looked cool as fuck, and on the rare occasion he wanted a hot bath, he could actually stretch out with relative ease.

He was still wired from the second can of Monster he’d downed at eleven, so he grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge, sank down on the couch, pulled out his work machine, and fired it up.

The next set of emails belonged to a different thread and were timestamped around four in the afternoon.

> From: rose.taco@gmail.com  
To: johnsonr@rip.com
> 
> Subj: fuck the police
> 
> _ Uhh Finn says something about email monitoring at RIP?? You might wanna check on that, bb…. _

> From: johnsonr@rip.com  
To: rose.taco@gmail.com
> 
> Subj: Re: fuck the police
> 
> _ Oh yeah, they made me sign an informed consent thingie with my contract, something about being aware that all email correspondence may be monitored. But there’s no way they can monitor all the email all the time; there’s just two IT guys and like 150 of us. They make us sign the informed consent just to scare us into not calling the company's VP a dick in company email. _
> 
> _ Which he is. _🤭

Ben groaned softly. “Rey, what are you _ doing, _” he muttered under his breath. For a moment, the wild idea occurred to him to track down Rey Johnson in her office tomorrow to pull her aside and give her some info security advice. But he ruled out that possibility almost immediately. He sighed through his nose, knocked back half the bottle of beer in three gulps, and went back to reading. 

> From: rose.taco@gmail.com  
To: johnsonr@rip.com
> 
> Subj: Re: re: fuck the police
> 
> _ Your call! Did he ever follow up with his creepy warning that he was watching you?? _

> From: johnsonr@rip.com  
To: rose.taco@gmail.com
> 
> Subj: Re: re: re: fuck the police
> 
> _ God, don’t remind me. He came into the break room today while I was reheating my lunch. I got out of there so fast I left my iced latte on the counter and by the time I remembered and went back for it, someone had thrown it in the trash. So I had to face the rest of the work day uncaffeinated. Even sucker rod pumps aren’t stimulating enough. _

> From: rose.taco@gmail.com  
To: johnsonr@rip.com
> 
> Subj: Re: re: re: re: fuck the police
> 
> _ Re: latte: Maybe Luke stole it!!!! that WOMP RAT _😱

> From: johnsonr@rip.com  
To: rose.taco@gmail.com
> 
> Subj: Re: re: re: re: re: fuck the police
> 
> _ ASDSF ;LK J NO ACTUALLY the creepy thing was that I stayed just long enough to see him: _
> 
>   1. _Open the fridge_
>   2. _Take out a GIANT GLASS BOTTLE of Vitamin D fortified organic whole milk_
>   3. _Start chugging directly out of the bottle with the fridge door open while_
>   4. _Maintaining unblinking eye contact with me for the most uncomfortable twenty seconds of my life_
> 
> _ SEE WHY I RAN, ROSE _

It was totally involuntary, what came out of his mouth next: “Oh my god, marry me.”

Ben blinked, and then felt himself blush up to the tips of his ears. That… was not at all what he meant to say. He hadn’t meant to say _ anything. _ And here he was, so mortified by what he’d said aloud to a completely empty house that he was _ blushing. _

“It is way too late for this shit,” he muttered to himself before swiftly snapping his laptop shut. He’d read the last of the thread, anyway, and it was approaching one. No wonder he was proposing marriage in the general direction of an email from a girl he hadn’t even met.

He downed the rest of his beer and then went to brush his teeth and crawl into bed. His mind was still buzzing, though; one beer wasn’t enough to knock him out even after a day as exhausting as today. He kept thinking about her -- about her picture, which was emblazoned at the bottom of every email she sent from that account, and about her effervescent rage at his uncle.

Staring up at the dark ceiling, he returned to his earlier idea of finding her at Rebel next time he was there. Just to… give her a heads up. As a friendly gesture. But as he played the scenario out in his head, he couldn’t imagine a way it could possibly end well_ . _How would he even start?

_ Hey, I’m Ben and I’ve been reading your emails. _

_ Hey, you’re working for a police state and your every word is being monitored so maybe consider text messages. _

_ Hey. You don’t know me but I think you’re cute and I definitely don’t want you to get fired so could you please stop emailing your friend dick jokes. _

None of those promised an especially positive beginning to a relationship. 

Ben sighed softly to himself. It was going to be a long couple of months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Chuck Tingle](https://www.amazon.com/Chuck-Tingle/e/B00SF2MTYK%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share) is a writer of gay erotica and his book titles really tell you all you need to know.
> 
> 2\. If you enjoy reading about phishing attacks as a humorous prelude to smut, you will be pleased to know that [there's more where that came from!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22438324)
> 
> 3\. EDC: [everyday carry.](https://everydaycarry.com/)
> 
> 4\. All of the technical writing used in this story comes straight from genuine industry documents. About ten years ago, my dear friend and longtime partner in fannish crime [Lavinia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaviniaLavender/pseuds/LaviniaLavender) got a job working as a technical writer doing exactly what this Rey does. She started emailing me excerpts from the documents she edited, the most notorious of which was a 400-slide PowerPoint presentation/training manual called "Tips on Servicing Your Sucker Rod." It was, as you might imagine, an instant classic.
> 
> For the technical writing quotes in this fic, I have drawn directly from Lavinia's emails. (She reminded me without having looked at those emails in a decade that ERECTION and LUBRICATION did indeed appear consecutively and in all caps.) I have supplemented those quotes with excerpts from other actual, published engineering papers. I hope they bring you as much laughter as they have brought me over the years.


End file.
